Interior

Originally published in Car and Driver magazine in May 1968.

Our test car came through with power steering which is not a bad option to have if you ever want to parallel park your fat-tired, 427-engined plastic Chevrolet. It’s a very high-effort type of power steering and the only indication you have that help is coming from somewhere is that parking effort is the same as normal driving effort. True, it doesn’t have the road feel of the manual gear but it’s not bad either and if you’re going to spend much time maneuvering in slow traffic with a 427 perched over the front wheels we’d recommend it.

If, about now, you’re getting the idea we’re lazy you’d better know the whole truth: our test Corvette had power brakes too. Unlike the power steering, the brakes are of the low-effort variety and require some getting used to. When it comes to stopping the car, however, they’re the next best thing to an arresting hook. Any time you find a car that will stop from 80 mph in 229 feet (.93G) and then turn around and do it again and again, you’ve got something to be excited about. The overly sensitive power booster made it almost impossible to avoid lock-up, particularly when stopping from 80 mph. But even so, the Corvette would still stop within the confines of one lane. Four-wheel disc brakes are standard on the Corvette, the only American car to be so equipped, and they really work.

A Corvette and a front-mounted corn picker have something in common. You never know where the front end ends because the long, shark-like snout disappears beyond the horizon. Parking is only moderately dangerous, but all the while it’s parked you live in fear of returning to find the Corvette’s pointy noise blunted by the hind end of a deaf spinster’s Crunchmobile.

While Chevrolet was re-fashioning the outside of the ’68 Corvette, they totally rearranged the inside, too. The instrument panel is done-up in the aircraft tradition with all kinds of matter-of-fact looking instruments on a flat-black background and very little bright metal trim — which is the way to go. The speedometer and tachometer are huge and easily readable but why locate all of the small gauges low and in the center of the panel? That wasn’t a very good idea on an MG-TC and it’s no better on a Corvette.

Pre-Sting Ray Corvette collectors remember the sit-straight-up-steering-wheel-in-your-chest driving position. Well, Corvettes have come a long way since then and a giant step of that distance was taken with the design of the ’68 model. The seats now recline in a super-comfortable space-age fashion with the steering wheel and pedals just where they should be. If your leg is thick from taking too many absolute stands on too many absolute positions, you’ll want a little more clearance between the seat cushion and the bottom of the wheel — but that’s the only shortcoming, and crusaders everywhere should be prepared to resign themselves to the attendant evils of their excesses anyway. The Corvette is an outstandingly comfortable car to drive, one of the best sports cars we can remember.

The lower roofline and pinched waist have resulted in a more intimate-feeling cockpit — some will call it small, with justice. The interior width dimension is definitely reduced. Sitting in a Stone Age Sting Ray was like sitting in a room compared to an E-type Jaguar but that feeling is gone now — the Corvette feels much more like the intimate 2-passenger sports car that it’s intended to be. Intimacy is perfectly fine with us, but we’ll choose the time and the place, and a ’68 Corvette is neither. The one-piece molded inner door panels are particularly thick at the window sills, just where men are the widest.

In the restyling shuffle the passenger space clearly suffered, but that’s not to say anyone was ignoring the luggage space either. It’s terrible. If you travel much, particularly á deux you may as well resign yourself to a rear deck luggage rack because the cargo hold behind the seats is now good for one fat suitcase with some dirty linen stuffed around it. How such a big car can have so little baggage space should be the subject of a congressional investigation. Chevrolet isn’t discriminating though, all those of you who, over the years, have grown to expect some sort of glove box in the dash will also be disappointed. The stylists did away with that, too, in the process of making the Corvette bigger. Instead there are two compartments, one with a locking lid, located in the floor of the luggage compartment behind the seats. At best, it’s unhandy having to turn around and reach between the seats and you can’t even see into the largest compartment which is on the far right side if you’re sitting in the driver’s seat — which you had better be doing if you’re driving. Forget the whole operation if your trunk is full.

Corvette started the gimmick game in ’63 with hidden headlights but that was nothing compared to the latest offering. the latest in hiding-biz is hidden windshield wipers. Never mind getting stuff — rain, snow, buzzard entrails — off the windshield. At least that’s the way it seems. But search the interior and you’ll find a wiper switch right in the middle of the instrument panel near the top. Flip the level to the right and a hatch, the full width of the cowl, lifts with a clunk freeing two captive wiper arms to do their job. And a splendid job they do, too, wiping almost the whole windshield including parts of the glass that are even hidden from the drivers eye by safety padding on the A-pillar and on top of the instrument panel. Some of the Corvette’s gimmicks don’t come through so bravely. A lot of them just lie there and buzz. The whole interior has been booby-trapped with safety devices — the most unnerving of the assortment being the buzzer that goes off whenever the door is opened while the key is in the ignition. There’s something very rude about that approach to gim-crackery in the name of safety. It’s an unmannerly buzz. Almost as bad is the seat belt warning light that has to be manually shut off every time the engine is started whether or not the belts are fastened. Pass the hatchet. Some of the other devices, like the door ajar warning light and the fiber optic light monitor system, are of genuine worth; they give useful information without annoyance.

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